


What Would Nick Do?

by PseudoFox



Series: Family, the Other 'F Word' [3]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: Anthropomorphic, F/M, Friendship/Love, Furry, Humor, Interspecies, Interspecies Relationship(s), Short, Short One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 09:51:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9602507
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PseudoFox/pseuds/PseudoFox
Summary: After achieving immense success, other members of Nick Wilde's family keep asking themselves what it truly means to follow his example. It surely means acting boldly, showing some daring confidence. His cousin William Wilde, a government employee working in one of Zootopia's many offices, thinks things over for himself.





	

The gigantic clock's minute hand, the bland, featureless steel reflecting in the bright fluorescent lights, ticked over to eight o'clock sharp. Fitted neatly on the wall above a set of tiny white shelves, the clock gave out the same empty, mechanical atmosphere as the rest of the office complex. The group of pastel-painted buildings housed a wide variety of civil servants working hour after hour to keep Zootopia's government functioning. One particular fox in one particular building spent a few seconds staring at the clock before letting himself smile.

"Finally, I'm almost done," William Wilde remarked. He turned around and stepped into a small dust-coated entrance. "Thank goodness. It's not every night that I'll have a seductive little prey waiting for me after work." Of course, she wouldn't actually wait for him in melodramatic style at the parking lot, like a scene out of a bad soap opera. He knew that she was likely on the phone with a relative in Podunk, clicking through e-mails, chomping on a baby carrot from her purse's snack pouch, and other standard daily errand-type things— things that somehow magically became 'cute' when she did them, such were her charms.

The little office room wasn't any more hospitable than it had been the previous three hours of work, but the fox's smile remained. He seized a large yet rather light box, paws gripping the cardboard, and plopped it onto a long, flat cart. The wheels squeaked as Wilde added three more boxes to the growing pile. He paused for a moment to glance at his reflection in the last unoccupied bit of metal on the car; his orange fur, coated with odd-looking patches of grey, seemed as ragged as ever. Yet he had a bit of a sparkle to his eyes.

"One more—" The fox leaned his head down, sniffing about for the distinct scent of aged cardboard. "Scratch that, two more boxes to go. Easy-peasy."

Wilde slid himself under a bookcase-like rack. It had gotten crammed full with what looked like 1970s-era filming equipment attacked by a savage predator going Luddite. He clutched a wayward box stuck up against the wall, took in a little breath, and then hurled it across the floor. Wilde mentally thanked his lucky stars that he'd been born one of the bending and curving type of foxes as he wiggled himself away from the rack.

Wilde picked his tail up and sat upon the edge of a large grey desk. He leaned back a little and slipped his paw up to his thick, black eyeglasses. The fox closed his eyes, sliding the metal and plastic right off of his face. He slapped his legs upon the last cardboard box, lifted it up into the air, and used his claws to create a little opening. He shoved his paw inside and pulled out a stack of commemorative washcloths.

Trying his best to clear his thoughts, the fox carefully cleaned off his glasses. He sighed and then gave his entire body a quick rub, paws tightly gripping the white cotton. Even after knocking a dozen little pieces of dust off of him, though, he still felt like he could barely hear himself think. The constant rattling noises and blasts of chill air thrust onto him coming from massive vents all across the ceiling hardly helped. Nor did the array of blinking lights from the stacks of electronic equipment before him.

"Just a few more minutes of grabbing boxes," Wilde murmured, slipping the glasses back onto his face, "and then I can finally get out of this damned server farm never to step in ever again." He stared blankly at the images of Bellwether's fuzzy head stamped upon all of the little towels. "Can't wait."

The obnoxious sheep's administration had only lasted a short number of weeks compared to past officeholders. Yet the sociopathic Mayor had gotten an atrocious amount of what her office called 'swag' created in her honor. Of course, this only constituted a glaring red-flag for her real intentions in hindsight, but it didn't change how much useless garbage mammals had to deal with.

At first, merely shoving the various items into hallway corners, isolated shelves, and other such places had served the post-Bellwether Zootopian government well. Those days didn't last that long. Finally, the orders came out from Mayor Swinton. Reminiscent of some kind of Sith villain calling upon 'the furce', the politician pig declared: 'Wipe them out. All of them.'

"Well," Wilde remarked to himself, "at least these tiny bits of spare laundry are being recycled." Some use had to come out of the damn things at some point.

He found his mind wandering as he thrust the last of the hunks of cardboard onto the nearby cart. The fox slowly brushed off his face before tossing the little towels that he'd pulled out back into the one opened box. This batch of useless cotton might become some fat fan-boy's Gazelle t-shirt in a few weeks. The fox yanked open the door to the computer-filled room in which he stood, glancing at the various fake plants in the massive hallway, and stepped out yet again.

He had only about forty-five minutes remaining until his date. The suggestive hare had given him plenty of flirty looks over the past several days. Her sensual make-up, lips coated in a ruby red sheen while her cheeks seemed so perfectly perky, well complimented her nice hips and short dresses. Of course, being of a race that, just or not, had the reputation of being total sluts helped quite a bit.

"I need a gimmick. I need just, well, this one thing. One thing to really stand out. What would cousin Nick do? Ugh, come on, I've worked with him for a while now. I ought to put on something that he'd put on. Act like he'd act... but what does that really mean?"

Wilde's mind flashed through various knickknacks that he'd picked up after starting to work for Mayor Swinton's mammals. None of them, from the faux golden cufflinks to the piggy pink stockings to everything else, seemed that impressive. The fox leaned against the hallway wall and clutched yet another Bellwether-printed washcloth. He loudly blew his nose in it.

"Just ordering something fancy is no good. Even trying to add even bigger words to my vocabulary. There has to be something direct, something... unexpected! But what?"

He idly tapped his paws, the piece of cotton getting tangled up against his fur, nudging his belly. He tried his best to use his imagination. Yet his mind came up with a blank. He glanced to the side, shut the door to the computer-filled room, and then let his head fall down upon his chest.

While staring blankly at the cold grey floor, however, Wilde noticed something peculiar. At first, it just seemed rather funny. He had rested his paws on his legs. Yet he somehow had accidentally nudged the washcloth a little bit against his belt, causing the piece of cotton to dangle in the air oddly.

"Hah, well," Wilde murmured, "at least I didn't... shove it in..." He found his paws moving by themselves as he said those words, pushing the cloth right into his pants. "That's... wait a moment... it kind of looks..."

The fox popped back open the door to the server farm. He stepped in a half-circle and stood up straight in front of a massive wall of metallic switches. An immense steel panel in the middle of the array functioned as a perfect mirror. He gazed down at his belly and everything below it.

"That's... that's a bit of an improvement..."

Without even thinking, the fox leaned over and clutched another Bellwether-stamped cloth. He held his paw in the air for a few seconds. He then grabbed two more.

"So, little lady, beautiful bunny," Wilde remarked to his reflection, posing his paws like little weapons at his sides, "what are you doing... after this candle-lit dinner of ours? Um... there's always plenty of movies that we can see, especially that high-brow one everybody raves about... with the French name that in English sounds like a racial slur."

He grabbed one more.

"So, how long have you thought about possibly breaking workplace sexual harassment laws?"

And another.

"So, I hear that hares and rabbits grow up in burrows with over a dozen brothers and sisters. Tell me, which one of them did you 'play doctor' with first, and how did it go?"

And yet another.

"So... what do you think about 'going savage' role-play?"

He picked up three more.

"So... should I get a heads-up about you calling be by another name when your eyes are closed? Now would be a good time to let me know."

Wilde took off his belt, throwing it down the hallway like a piece of trash, and picked up the entire box of washcloths. He took a deep breath and emptied every last one of them into his open pants. Finally, closing his eyes, the fox let himself smile.

"Well," Wilde remarked, awkwardly walking over to the complex's parking lot, "I should tell Nick that Bellwether did something good for predators after all."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks very much for reading!
> 
> After thinking about a bunch of serious topics lately both in terms of writings as well as my life in general, honestly, I really wanted to try something that didn't even have an ounce of seriousness in it. This is another writing experiment. Please post if you have any advice, criticisms, ideas, or the like. Thank you again for looking at the piece.


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